


If is for Children

by Constance



Series: Yellow Ribbon [2]
Category: Life on Mars
Genre: Hand Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-26
Updated: 2011-01-26
Packaged: 2017-10-15 02:48:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/156257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Constance/pseuds/Constance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam blows himself up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Sam Tyler woke up with a very fuzzy head and only one distinct thought floating around in it. For a few seconds of semi-consciousness the Thought drifted just out of reach but then he had it, in big capital letters. Playing With Bombs Is Not A Good Idea. Attached to the end of that thought he found another: I Think I'm About To Be Blown Up.

It took Sam's brain what felt like hours to follow those two ideas back to actual memories but they were all floating out of context and he had no idea of how much time had passed. He remembered a bomb. A classic, straight-out-of-the-movies bomb, with the ticking clock and the dynamite sticks and the two curly wires. If this world was his own creation then Sam's subconscious must like clichés more than he'd ever realised. And unfortunately his police training hadn't covered cliché bombs. He'd never understood the whole red wire/yellow wire thing anyway; even as a child Sam had decided that should he ever want to blow someone up he'd definitely use different colour wires to those described in the manual. He'd discovered early on in his career as a policeman that no-one expected him to learn about ticking Warner Bros. dynamite bombs with curly wires. Instead they'd covered fertilizer bombs and heat detonators and how to identify fake semtex from the real thing and, most importantly, the piece of advice they'd repeated over and over, the only thing a policeman really needed to know about bombs - evacuate the scene, wait for the bomb squad. With hindsight, Sam decided, that was damn good advice.

Not that he could actually remember being blown up. But his brain was fuzzy and he couldn't move, his eyelids didn't react when he sent the command to open and he certainly didn't remember walking away from an unexploded car, so it was a fair assumption. He sifted through the mental debris of half remembered dreams and found nothing after the memory of that raucous alarm sounding. He'd gone for yellow in the end, because there was only five seconds left and he wasn't expecting a flash of divine inspiration and if you're taking a wild guess yellow is as good a colour as red. It was the wrong choice, maybe they were both the wrong choice, maybe snipping either wire would have sounded that alarm. But yellow had definitely been wrong. Sam had wriggled out from under the car and the last thing he remembered was laying on tarmac, hands gripping the back bumper of the car as he'd struggled to pull himself upright and run.

Sam tried for the opening of the eyes again with no joy. Not the slightest reaction, not even pain. His ears didn't seem to be working either, unless he really was in a room with a constant high pitched ringing and no other sound. Still 1973 though, Sam didn't need his eyes or ears to tell him that. The smell of cigarette smoke pervaded, overlaying a harsh disinfectant untainted by modern perfumes. Sam was too tired to feel disappointment; to consider that even blowing himself up wasn't enough to get back to his hospital bed in 2006. He had one more try at opening his eyes but the effort proved too much and the world faded away.

********

The second time Sam woke up the ringing was still there, now overlaid with voices.

"The Guv gone home?" A familiar voice, but it brought no warmth with recognition. Ray, Sam decided after a moment's thought. So he wasn't dead then, or if he was, Sam was dead as well, and he really hoped he wouldn't be sharing an after-life with Ray.

"Nah." Another voice, also familiar, better associations. "Matron took him to get patched up. Never thought I'd meet a bird that could push the Guv around. Does he look like he's going to wake up to you?"

Even over the ringing in his ears Sam could hear the anxiety in the question, and the disinterest in the reply. "Who bloody well cares? Bloke's a menace. Was the Guv bad?"

"Bit cut up. Not as bad as you. He was spitting nails over the coat, though."

"Right then. Pub?"

"Nah, I'll just... Mebbe sit here a bit. Just till the Guv comes back."

"Suit yourself."

Sam tried to thank Chris, but though his mouth was open there was something obstructing the words and for some reason his tongue wouldn't move. The trying was more than he could manage and Sam could feel the world slipping away. The last thing he heard was Carling.

"Don't cry, you great div. His kind always wakes up. No getting rid of 'em."

********

The next time Sam woke the voices were different, and the smell. He was half aware of being moved and jostled, and a stinging pain in his throat. Then the voices faded to a gentle snoring, everything quiet but not black. Trying to move was met with pain so Sam didn't bother and after a few minutes drifted into a more natural sleep.

********

Fourth time proved the charm. Sam awoke and his eyes were open before he'd had time to stop and wonder if it would be possible to open them this time, then his mind had to back-track to fill in the blanks. Hospital, definitely a hospital. The hideous ceiling tiles and unwholesome smell transcended the decades. Sam moved his head to the side to investigate further and the world went red with the sudden agony of it. Sam gritted his teeth - metaphorically, incase his mouth had suffered the same fate as his neck - and clung on to consciousness.

When the pain faded to a manageable level and Sam dared open his eyes again he was facing an out of focus pile of filthy brown rags. Not your typical hospital decor. They appeared to be moving, as well, though that could easily be Sam's eyes or his brain, which was still on the untethered side of floating. Trying to bring the pile into focus conjured a shooting pain in his head but at least that drove away some of the wooliness. A second look at the outside world revealed the pile of rags to be a familiar camel coat, liberally covered in dirt and soot, shifting gently to the rhythm of breathing.

Sam coughed and the coat moved as DCI Hunt sat up with a start. He blinked then his eyes met Sam's, and he stared for a long moment before speaking.

"You back with us, Tyler?" he asked quietly, leaning forward, and Sam felt the slight shift of Gene's elbows resting on his bed. He nodded in answer - big mistake. The pain of his burnt ear rubbing against the pillow made his head spin, his stomach rebelled. In reaction Sam cried out, adding his throat to the list of body parts that weren't feeling at the top of their game. Once the coughing started it was hard to stop and every movement brought more pain. A large hand caught his chin, keeping his head still, and eventually Sam got his breathing back under control.

"They had a tube down your throat till this morning," Gene said softly. "Doctor said you wouldn't be able to talk for a while - I did tell him you could never keep that big trap shut for long."

Sam rolled his eyes, it seemed to be the only movement he could make without painful reprisal. Gene grinned.

"Yep. You're still with us." He relaxed back into his chair with a satisfied snort and pulled out his hip flask. The small one, Sam noted, the 12 year old reserve that usually signalled Gene was running out of booze. "Doc said if your skull wasn't so thick your brain would have blown out of your eye sockets. So it turns out there is a good side to being a flaming moron."

Sam did his best to tell Gene to fuck off, but his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth and someone had sandpapered his throat and his voice came out a rasp. Gene held out his open hipflask and Sam shuddered at the thought of whisky burning through his insides. He'd learnt his lesson with nodding, wasn't about to shake his head, could think of no painless way of refusing but Gene must have seen the fear in his eyes because he put the flask away with a shrug. A minute or two of effort and there was enough spit in Sam's mouth to form words.

"How long?"

Gene gave Sam a sharp look and patted himself down for a ciggie before answering. "Since you blew yourself up? Three days."

Sam ran his eye over his dishevelled superior. His face was tired and drawn under the dirt and stubble and the cigarette smoke wasn't quite masking the smell of ripe DCI. And Gene's beloved coat was a mess, filthy dirty and peppered with rips and burns.

"Have you been-" another fit of coughing, easier than the last "-here all that time?"

"Don't be so bleeding soft, Samantha! You think I've got nothing better to do than sit by your bedside? The scum didn't declare a holiday when they'd heard you'd blown yourself up, you know." Gene gave an indignant sniff at the idea he could ever be that sentimental, took a long drag of his cigarette. "Been coming up in the evenings to chase that soppy plonk home. You've had her worried sick."

And that, presumably, was Gene Hunt's way of welcoming Sam back to the land of the living. He responded in kind.

"You look like shit."

Gene curled up his lip. "Says Boris Karloff here. If I could get a day or two without any of my officers bleeding well exploding I might find time to go home and take a bath. We can't all be laying around getting sponged by nurses."

A last drag and Gene stubbed his cigarette out on the leg of the chair and flicked it away. Impossibly, he made himself comfortable again on the hard plastic chair by Sam's bedside, head leaning against the wall, coat pulled over him, and closed his eyes.

"Did you get them?" Sam asked.

Gene opened one eye briefly. "In a manner of speaking."

Sam waited but no more was forthcoming and Gene gave every appearance of being asleep.

"You fitted up every Irishman in Manchester, didn't you?" he prompted from his own prone position.

"No."

Reluctantly those green eyes opened again. Gene took another swig from the flask and sat up a little straighter with a sigh and the air of a man with a story to tell.

"Well yes," he conceded. "Rounded 'em up, anyway. Every bastard Paddy I could lay my hands on. So they were all in the nick when the third call came through. Turns out the whole thing was a cover for a bank job. While we were dealing with the hoax - there was no bomb the third time - that wanker Miller was on the other side of town blowing his way into a bank vault."

"But you got him?"

"Nope." Gene grinned again and for a moment the tiredness faded away. "Daft bugger knew all the tunnels. Built the flaming things, didn't he? But he hadn't counted on the steel lining the bank had put in, deflected the blast outwards, so the bomb squad said. Percussion, or summat. He was still unconscious when we turned up an hour later!"

Sam smiled. It didn't hurt too much.

"Ray's out," Gene added. "Walking and talking." There was no particular inflection in his voice but Sam heard the message just the same.

"I know. I heard him and Chris."

"His moustache is singed. Don't think he'll ever forgive you for that."

Probably not. But there was already a long list of things Ray would never forgive him for and that list was headed by 'being Sam Tyler'. "Am I... singed?" he asked.

"Nothing that won't heal eventually, most like. 'Less you wanna take up piano everything should be fine and dandy." Gene glanced out the darkened window rather shiftily as he spoke and Sam got the feeling he didn't want to hear any more details. "Was your brain they were most worried about, though god knows how they found it. You know what year it is, right?"

Despite the automatic insult Sam thought he could hear a trace of anxiety in that gruff voice, so for Gene's benefit he lied.

"1973."

"There you go. Better than new. And it's about time for you to be passing out again, Sammy-boy. Some of us have got a long day ahead, fitting up scumbags."

"You should go home, Guv. Get-" washed "-some proper rest."

"If I'm not here when your plonk turns up at seven she'll be slipping something nasty in my tea. Daft bird's got this mad idea that you might kick it if you didn't have someone talking to you. God knows why, you never listen when you're conscious. And you're lucky you're immune to a nice pair of tits, Tyler, that one's going to be ruling some poor sod with a fist of iron in a year or two."

The hip flask disappeared and Gene leaned back, closed his eyes again.

"You can't sleep in that chair all night!"

The corner of Gene's mouth flicked up. "Now you tell me! Where was that pearl of wisdom three days ago? But don't worry Tyler, sun'll be up any minute. Now kindly let me get some shut-eye."

Within minutes Gene was snuffling softly in his sleep and though he'd only been awake half an hour Sam quickly followed him into oblivion. He went to sleep with a smile on his face and a warm feeling that had nothing to do with third degree burns.


	2. Chapter 2

'Nothing that wouldn't heal' wasn't the cheery prognosis it sounded. Gene may have been right, more or less, but healing, it turned out, was a long and painful process that left scars. A week of laying in a hospital bed having his dressings changed every six hours soon took the shine off not being dead.

When the alarm on that bomb had sounded Sam had done his best to get away, survival instincts overriding any idea that this might be the way home. He'd wriggled out from under the car, this much he could remember for himself now, scraping his back on the tarmac in his haste to be out from under the doomed car. He'd grabbed the bumper from underneath, intending to pull himself upright and run, and that was where the memories had stopped. The blast had lifted him up, apparently, and thrown him forward, powerful enough to destroy his favourite and only leather jacket and burn a good deal of the skin off his back. The back of his neck was a bubbling collection of blisters and aside from his fringe he would not be needing the services of a barber for some time to come. He hadn't yet dare ask how silly he looked and the thick turban of bandages prevented him taking a quick peek in the mirror.

His hands were what bothered him most. Both still touching the car at the initial blast, presumably, and badly burnt. Gene had been cagey about what happened next, but Sam gathered from Annie that Gene had been dragging him away from the car when the petrol tank had gone up seconds later and the car had blown apart, scattering shrapnel everywhere. One piece had ended up in his left hand, luckily for the right-handed Sam, as the doctors said the tendons might never be what they were. The burns would heal but Gene had been right - he'd never play piano. In the meantime his hands had been bandaged out of use.

In the hours of lying in bed Sam had plenty of time to wonder if something had happened in 2006 that translated itself into his 1973 fantasy, but he heard no voices, no bleeps. He was almost impatient to get back to his pokey little flat and check he still had the company of the test card girl and her creepy clown.

Not that he was short of company in the hospital. Despite Gene complaining endlessly about being short staffed with his skiving DI laid up, both Annie and Chris had spent a good deal of their work hours sitting by his bedside. Even Gene cut short his male-bonding-and-booze time in the pub to come up every evening and fight with the duty nurse who insisted visiting hours ended at six. He brought the booze with him, stank out the tiny room with deadly smoke, seemed to delight in the fact that he shouldn't be there, but still the gesture warmed Sam. And there was always entertainment to be had watching Gene face off against the nurse. He noticed it was more of a ritual than an argument; both participants knew going in who would come out the victor and once Gene was safely ensconced the sour faced woman seemed quite happy to bring him endless cups of tea and sweep up his carelessly discarded fag butts without complaint. It was an affect Sam had noticed before. Despite his appalling crudity, misogyny, and advanced years, women of all ages somehow tolerated Gene Hunt.

It was the nurse who had told Sam how DCI Hunt had sat there every night while Sam had been unconscious. Turning up straight from work in the same dishevelled state to chivvy his other visitors home to their beds and all the cajoling of nurses hadn't shifted him for longer than it took to change bandages. The first time he came in when Sam was actually conscious he was a good deal cleaner, and Sam's vision a good deal clearer, he could see just how battered his DCI was. And he knew there were wounds he couldn't see, more shredded bodywork from the destroyed green Ford, again information that came from the nurses rather than Gene.

All the complaining he heard from his DCI was about the bloody coat. And just in case anyone might for a second forget the depth of his loss, Gene continued to wear it. Someone, presumably the elusive Missus, when Gene finally took the time to go home, had cleaned out the soot and sewn up the shrapnel shaped holes, but nothing could be done about the side where Gene had hit the tarmac with his DI. The thick material looked like it had been attacked by a cheese-grater and the overall effect was one a tramp would turn their nose up at. A cold tramp. Still, a week later Gene was stubbornly still wearing it and if anyone dared to suggest it was time he got a new one they weren't stupid enough to dare twice.

Sam might have pointed out how scruffy it looked, as it was generally his lot to say what others wouldn't, but he wasn't picking fights with his DCI this week. Though no-one had said as much, particularly not Gene, Sam realised he would be in several large chunks if not for his superior officer. Besides, he was rather fond of that coat himself. It was hardly flattering and added a good two stone to Gene's already substantial bulk but that suited the larger than life man it covered. Gene wore it so constantly that the coat had woven itself into Sam's sexual fantasies and he could hardly imagine the DCI without it.

He could and did imagine himself in it. Just sometimes, when he'd had too much beer and too much of his own company. Not wearing it, just creeping inside, snuggling against Gene - they'd both fit, he was sure - pressing up against him, feeling the firm contours that the coat hid.

Sam pulled the emergency cord on that train of thought too late to avoid a most unwanted erection. Just one of the many, many frustrating things about having both hands tightly bound, and not in the nice handcuffs-and-leather way. No fancy light-weight bandages in 1973; his arms were two mummified gourds that the nurses laboriously unwound four times a day to change the dressings. Bad enough that thinking about a fat, forty-plus Neanderthal got him horny, worse when even the reliable right hand wasn't available for a spot of relief.

No distractions, either. No BUPA in 1973, no tellies over the hospital beds. Sam didn't have a hand to hold a book or press the buttons on the tape player Annie had brought in for him, and if he did moving at all was still painful and very slow. The healing skin on his back was still tight and sore and his neck worse.

Annie had been a reliable distraction in daylight hours, every evening, every lunch break, every hour she snatched from work (with Gene's tacit consent, he was sure). But Annie had gone home for her tea when it got dark and thinking of her now somehow led his thoughts straight back to Gene. Sam knew, because Annie had told him, that Gene had an important darts match this evening, and for the first time since Sam regained consciousness he hadn't turned up after a few pints to chase Annie home.

It was rather pathetic to Sam just how much he missed his presence. Not just the company, the latest work talk to keep Sam's active mind busy, conversation to alleviate the boredom of recuperating. Not for the eye candy either, though his brain had to pause to realise that he was now terming Gene Hunt as eye candy and made a note of just how disturbing that was. He just missed the warm fuzzy feeling that came with incontrovertible proof he was cared for.

1973 was a lonely place. No family, no old friends, no past, the closest thing to a home he had here was Manchester CID headquarters. His mother might be sitting by his bedside but she was doing it 33 years away - warm fuzzies were hard to come by. Gene might, and did, point out that Sam's predicament was his own stupid fault and blame him, loudly, for the damage to his coat. He might claim he'd only sat by his unconscious DI because it was the only way of chasing Cartwright out of the hospital. He could give any other excuse to maintain the facade of uncaring hardman, but every night for a week he'd halved his pub time to sit on a criminally uncomfortable chair and chew the cud with his bedridden colleague.

It wasn't the frantic man-on-man action Sam idly thought he wanted but it was something and maybe, to an extent, better. Friendship, duty, affection - the closest thing to family he could ever find here. Lying in a hospital bed with no voices from the future 'here' felt far too real and it would be a depressing feeling indeed without Gene to look forward to.

And Sam knew it was petulant and childish to resent one missed visit, one evening on his own, but he did. Gene had gone well over what Sam would consider necessary if it was his DI stuck in hospital, taken the place of a family who didn't yet know Sam existed, spent more time with his annoying DI in the last ten days than with his wife or his beloved boozer. And Sam knew how much Gene loved sticking it to RCS, even in a 'friendly' darts match, and how much he'd earned his R&R and the 'friendly' punch-up that usually followed. But Sam resented it just the same. Nearly as much as he resented the thick bandages that prevented him slipping his hand under the sheet and giving himself a quick tug.

So his childish, petulant heart flipped a little when Gene appeared in the doorway of his hospital room at half past eleven. He brought every scent of a good booze-up with him but walked steadily enough to his customary chair and landed in it with a dramatic creak. He cast a speculative look over his prone DI and raised his eyebrows.

"Pleased to see me, Sammy-boy?"

Sam followed Gene's eyes down and closed his own with embarrassment. He'd been wrong, he realised, when he'd decided that frustration was the worst part of being helpless - it was the humiliation. The plain, tightly stretched hospital blanket did nothing to disguise his lingering erection. Blood rushed to his face, but wherever that blood was being diverted from clearly wasn't his cock, which stayed perversely hard through Sam's mortification.

"Fuck off." It really was the most dignified response he could come up with. Gene sniffed loudly.

"Charmin'! What's the matter, Tyler? They get you a pretty young doctor to puff up your pillows?"

Doctors, to Gene, were presumably male. It was only the second time he'd alluded to Sam's sexuality since that terrifying Monday morning talk, apart from the homophobic name calling that Gene practised indiscriminately on anyone who annoyed him. His DCI had shocked him that day with his casual dismissal of something Sam had assumed would be a huge deal, he'd had to re-evaluate quite a few opinions he'd held of the man. But he was still sure if his boss knew the thoughts that had lead to Sam's current state of perkiness he would run screaming from the building. Or possibly just kill Sam. Either way it would be the end of a not-entirely-ugly friendship. Gene's opening comment hit far too close for comfort and his amusement added an extra note of whinge to Sam's voice as he answered defensively.

"You try laying on your back for a week with your hands in fucking breezeblocks!" Sam opened his eyes again to glare at his DCI, found him smirking back, not without a measure of sympathy. "I can't even pee by myself, never mind wank. And it's fucking miserable! So if you've just come up here to take the piss out of me then you can fuck off back to the pub!"

Where Gene would rather be, most probably, a thought Sam resented even though he'd skipped the lock-in to come and visit him and he was vaguely aware that he was being a selfish little twat. But he'd been laying on his back for a week, not doing anything or sleeping properly, and he thought that was a good enough excuse for the occasional bad temper. It wasn't exactly what was _causing_ his bad temper but Sam didn't want to admit what was.

"And you know something else? I'm not a bloody poof!"

Gene's eyebrows climbed higher but his composure remained unruffled. "That bloke just tripped and landed with his dick in your arse?" he asked calmly.

"That's not... Just because I like that doesn't mean I don't like girls. It could have been a pretty nurse plumping up my pillows."

"Was it?"

"No," Sam admitted with a whine. He glanced down at the stiffy that was still ignoring all his entreaties to leave. "It's not anything. I haven't had a wank for a fortnight; the bloody thing's grown a mind of its own. It's like being a bloody teenager again, it's mutinied, it's-"

"Christ, Tyler! Queer or not you're a frigging drama queen."

In one forceful movement Gene caught the edge of Sam's sheet and ripped it from its stays, leaving Sam with just the covering of his hideous thigh length hospital gown. Gene flicked that out of the way too and wrapped a calloused hand around Sam's erection.

"What are you doing?"

Okay, it was a stupid question, but Sam's brain had shut down. Gene treated it with the contempt it deserved.

"What do you think I'm doing?" he grunted. His hand moved up and down, gripping tightly, and Sam's dick sighed approval as his brain stuttered.

"You're... What... You..."

"Shut it, Tyler."

And Sam had to obey because Gene was sliding his thumb over the head of his cock just as Sam did to himself. And hard as he was Gene's gruff order made him harder and God, Gene was right, he really was a kinky little bastard. And for a couple of glorious minutes Sam really didn't care. Gene Hunt was leaning over him, gaze fixed on the opposite wall, blond fringe flopping over his forehead, and he was _fisting his cock._ And Sam knew if Gene could read his mind right then he'd be out of the hospital quicker than Bannister after a vindaloo but as he couldn't, Sam let his fantasies take flight and bit his lip.

It was never going to last very long, however desperately Sam tried to prolong the moment. He might have held back a little longer but Gene's eye flickered sideways to meet Sam's and Sam was lost, coming hard over his stomach and willing himself to be silent. Then the deliciously strong hand was gone, reappearing a second later with a rather grubby handkerchief. Gene wiped the cum off his stomach as Sam panted out his high, tossed the soiled cloth into the corner of the room and carefully re-tucked the blanket.

"Better now, Dorothy?"

Sam nodded, and damn the pain of his burnt neck rubbing against the pillow - he couldn't have spoken right then.

"Good." Gene sat back in his chair and put his feet up on the bed as he pulled out his hipflask. "Did Cartwright tell you about Davy Connor?"

Sam blinked and tried very hard to come up with an answer that wasn't 'guh'. "The suspect for the Magdalen Road robbery?" he asked, after a long minute of racking his rather confused brain.

"That's the one. Pulled him out of the canal this evening. Bloody inconvenient timing - nearly missed the darts and we haven't lost to RCS since I got A division. Stabbed 16 times, the doc says."

"Uh..."

"C'mon, Tyler. You're still on the payroll you know. Reckon we're going to need some of your laconical thinking on this one."

Sam laughed. He was fairly sure his mind would never really work again, laconically or otherwise, but then he'd spent far too much of his life thinking. As a pastime it was overrated. He gave the ceiling one last beaming smile and tried to affect some of Gene's nonchalance.

"Okay. Brief me."


	3. Chapter 3

It was another long week before Sam was able to return to work. Even then he went against the advice of the doctors, but as Gene said, you should only really listen to a doctor when you're too ill to lamp him one and eventually the boredom was worse than the pain. He'd been more or less stuck with his hands bandaged into submission - maybe Gene Hunt would have had the balls to check himself out of hospital wearing nothing but a backless gown but he, Sam Tyler, had to wait until he had a hand with which to pull up his trousers.

Being back in CID was like going home. Not that Sam was the slightest amount of use 90% of the time and, he was sure Gene would say, a bloody pain in the arse the other 10%. His left hand was still wrapped and his back a patchwork of dressings that protested with every sudden movement, leaving him useless in the field. A five minute ride in the passenger seat of the Cortina would likely have finished him off. He could hold a pen and write almost legibly but it was painful and blisters formed easily on the newly grown skin so even paperwork was not without its dangers.

But he could join in the banter and hold his pint in the Railway arms and despite getting on everyone’s nerves CID was a comfortable place to be. It was the place he had missed, laid up in his hospital bed, not his shiny PC terminal or his sterile converted factory or even his pokey flat. And Sam was mostly relieved to find nothing had changed. Ray still hated him, obviously, Annie was still his friend, everyone else tolerated his obvious insanity and Gene was still Gene. If he noticed Sam looking at him a little more than necessary he never let on and of course they never mentioned the incident in the hospital, Sam because he didn't dare and Gene, presumably, because he never thought on it. A helping hand for a mate and he could have no idea of how often Sam thought about that particular hand.

Sam spent his time passing on his crackpot ideas to Chris and Annie, and it was a measure of how long he'd been stuck in the seventies that even in his own head he was labelling 'proper procedure' as 'crackpot ideas'. He would loom over their shoulders until even those two patient people were a little exasperated and when they managed to escape him he would pester Gene instead. There was only so much slack you could cut someone for saving your life, after all. Three days of being corrected on every point and the DCI cracked. WDC Cartwright found herself with a choice of new assignments - either keep Tyler better entertained or help the Guv bury his mutilated corpse. She interpreted this task in the kindest way and drove Sam into the centre of Manchester to go clothes shopping.

His flat had contained a spare coat with the rest of its Sam sized wardrobe but he'd used it to mop up blood and was a little lost without his leather jacket. And also cold. So Sam spent a pleasant afternoon trawling clothes shops and soothed his conscience with the thought that he was being just as useful here as he would be at the nick. Annie, too, seemed to enjoy his company much more when he wasn't correcting her punctuation or in some other way being a prick.

It didn't take too long for him to select a leather jacket almost identical to the one that had melted off his shoulders, but Annie suggested they browse through a few more shops before he made up his mind and Sam fell in with this happily. He suspected she was under strict instructions to keep him out of Gene's hair and he owed the man a few hours of his absence. Owed him something else as well and he was sure, somewhere in Manchester, there was a shop that could provide it.

********

Serious crime in Manchester just wasn't what it used to be, DCI Hunt concluded as he put his feet up on the desk for the third time that day and closed his eyes. In the three days since his DI had returned to work he'd pulled in nothing more serious than a mugger and though he'd been a vicious little bastard it hadn't taken more than half an hour to frighten a confession out of him. One murder all week and the killer had been holding the still smoking gun, telling all and sundry how he'd deserved to die. It left very little detecting to do.

On a normal slow day, normal being what happened before Sam Tyler landed in his department, Gene would have started with a nap. Moved on to a drink about lunchtime and maybe, if he'd been bored enough in the afternoon, dragged in some of the usual unsavories to cross a few old crimes off his books. Life hadn't been normal for quite a while. If he snatched a minute to close his eyes nowadays the annoying, persistent voice of Tyler would pop up, blathering on about new initiatives and proactive policing.

Having got rid of Tyler, Gene was dismayed to notice that he didn't seem to have taken his voice with him. His DI was definitely not in the building but Gene could still hear him, pointing out the importance of the paperwork he was currently resting his feet on and generally stopping Gene getting his forty winks. If anything, Sam Tyler the disembodied voice was more annoying than the genuine article. The voice had never had the temerity to hide his whisky, true, or knock his feet off the desk, but neither could he kidney punch a voice or even shout it down without getting a few funny looks.

As soon as he'd got shot of the actual Sam Tyler after lunch, Gene had put his head down and been rather surprised at the persistent nagging reminding him he'd a pile of sicknotes to sign and three case files to wrap up. Gene Hunt didn't do little voices. He wasn't one for dwelling or fretting and he was a determined kind of bloke so when he decided to put his head down for a kip then kip was exactly what he did. Just not on this particular occasion. And so Gene found himself doing paperwork - it was a disconcerting experience for a man who never did anything but exactly what he decided to do.

His second attempt had been even more disturbing. He'd been drifting off, conscience free, when an image had popped into his head. His DI, face pressed against a brick wall, a hand that wasn't Gene's gripping the back of his neck, eyes screwed tight in ecstasy. It was a picture not conducive to sleep and for the third time that day Gene had reached for the scotch bottle. In fact, that particular picture had had Gene reaching for the scotch more than once the last few days.

He'd not thought too much of it at the time. He might have let his eye linger for longer than it took to assess the situation, had still been looking when Tyler had opened his eyes, but then he was half cut and only looking for a private place to have a slash and hadn't expected what he saw. The shock quickly wore off - absolutely nothing Tyler chose to do could surprise Gene any more - and left a faint anger that his DI would be stupid enough to get his kicks where it could so easily ruin his career. And a more primordial anger because Sam was _his_ DI which meant Gene should be the only one slamming him against walls. But he'd put the incident out of his mind. It was hardly the first time he'd seen two blokes rutting - impossible to avoid that kind of thing in the army, being locked away from the women will do funny things to a chap - he wasn't intrigued and too old and hardened to be disgusted. Besides, it was obvious to any idiot there was a lot more seriously wrong with DI Tyler than who he chose to cuddle up with. A propensity for being nearly killed, for instance. Being stark staring bonkers, as another example.

So really, he'd hardly thought about what he'd seen, except to enjoy watching his DI squirm on Monday morning. And that hadn't been quite the laugh he'd expected. Baiting Tyler was really only fun when the other man fought back and the genuine fear on his DI's face had sat uncomfortably. He'd put the matter out of his mind, a talent of his, but unlike most of the nastiness buried in Gene's subconscious that morsel kept popping back up to haunt him. And it wasn't even the worst picture his brain threw back at him.

It had started in the hospital, naturally enough, with the real Sam in front of him hanging by a thread and when Gene closed his eyes his mind would show him pictures of his DI. Sam being lifted off the ground by dynamite, sometimes, Sam's burnt and bleeding body when Gene had peeled his dazed self off his DI. Sam as he really was, lying deathly still in a hospital bed, even the rising of his chest produced by a plastic tube.

Gene loved his team. He would never have said it in quite those words because that would be girly and they would think he'd gone mad, but he wasn't ashamed of it and didn't care if they knew, wanted them to know. A parent’s love, tough and running deep. So nearly losing two men on the same day was always going to hit hard and Sam would probably have a name for the images that troubled his sleep. But they were both just fine now, more or less, his mind should be back on the villains of Manchester but Sam, having taken up residence, didn't want to leave. And Gene had added another frame to his unwanted mental cine-reel. Sam, panting, glassy gaze fixed on his DCI the second before he came.

Another of those things Gene had hardly considered at the time. Poor bastard had had to suffer peeing in a bedpan for a week and Gene was feeling particularly tolerant on account of him not being dead; if he needed a hand Gene wasn't going to think too hard about it. He'd done far worse for the sake of his team. National Service had introduced him to many of the seedier things in life and one man's cock was much like another. It wasn't personal, or intimate, just so happened that men needed to shoot their load every so often. But he hadn't been prepared for the look on his DI's face when he'd turned his head just for a second. That look had been intimate; another man laid open and bare in a way Gene had never seen before. Mouth slightly open, lips pink and wet like a girl's, eyes fixed on his and pleasure evident. Immediately buried, like every other damn thing Gene never wanted to think about but it wouldn't stay dead and dredged up other memories with it. Tyler in that alley. An unknown, shadowy face that Gene wanted to turn into porridge and if that feeling wasn't jealousy then why the hell did he feel so angry?

And that was what hanging around with a man from _Hyde_ will do to you. Because now, he was bloody well analysing his frigging emotions. Another of Tyler's phrases Gene had lived his whole life quite happily without. And the third inventive way the little bastard had interrupted his nap without being in the bleeding building. Gene wasn't such an old dog he couldn't learn new policing tricks, he grudgingly listened to each of Tyler's crazy ideas because some of them got results, made him and his team better coppers. But he'd go to hell on a frigging chopper before he started thinking like the man. Gene Hunt was decisive, sure of himself, sure of his gut; it was the Sam Tylers of this world that kept themselves awake brooding about their own sodding feelings. It wasn't enough for Tyler to become the voice of his conscience - he was turning him into a frigging pansy.

The man was a bloody disease. Something nasty and tropical. Crept under his skin in all sorts of ways the last six months - but this was new.

He'd known Tyler would be trouble from the second his transfer papers landed on Gene's messy desk and boy had he been right, but he'd crept in anyway. Onto his team. Trouble or not Sam was suddenly one of his. And he could be annoying - some days Gene had to physically restrain himself from standing up and punching the man just for the way he pranced into his office of a morning - but Sam was insidious and worked himself in until Gene learnt to like annoying. Days seemed dull without a little insanity.

A little more burrowing, a little booze to oil the wheels, and he was talking to Sam the way he hadn't talked to anyone since back in the day when he and the wife would really talk to eachother. And there was an uncomfortable comparison.

Almost despite himself Gene liked things the way they were. The crazy ideas and the stupid arguments, the total lack of respect and the antagonistic friendship. Being challenged, being an equal and not just the Guv. But they weren't equals and things never stayed the way they were and Gene was getting the feeling if he didn't put Tyler back in his place now he never would. He'd let the man take too many liberties, change the way they all worked until a good half of all Gene's thoughts concerned Tyler or his outlandish methods. It had only got worse now he was the walking wounded. Gene couldn't even give him the odd punch to maintain the illusion that he was in charge and Tyler had nothing better to do than pester Gene, nagging and pouting till he got his own way, like the frigging girl he was, waltzing in and out of his office like he had every right.

Well no more. If Tyler was well enough to be back at work he didn't need the kid gloves. He'd put things back the way they should be, have Tyler following orders and out of his flaming head. He was his team - put the team in order and Gene's head would surely follow. It was that easy.

The decision somehow didn't help sleep come and Gene was still watching his eyelids when Tyler walked back into the nick. Gene swore he could smell that clean, gay-boy smell before he heard his voice and Cartwright's soft laughter.

He feigned sleep when his office door opened. That was the first thing he had to stop - his previous DI would never have dared walk in without a summons, would have known better than to even knock without a damn good reason. So Gene kept his eyes shut, plotting a suitable comeupance, and was taken unawares when a soft heavy weight landed on his chest. He opened his eyes with a low growl to find Tyler beaming at him, that Labrador grin that always left Gene torn between patting his DI on the head and bloody well kicking him.

"What do you think?"

The smaller man wasn't exactly bouncing, his movements subdued by his injuries, but he came closer to it than anyone over the age of twelve had any right to. Gene took hold of the camel coat that had landed on him and narrowed his eyes, calculating exactly where he could hit hard enough to cause pain without sending his DI straight back to hospital.

"We going somewhere?"

Even as he asked, Gene realised the coat felt wrong in his hand, both stiffer and smoother than it should be, and the smell was wrong too. None of last night's beer, or ingrained cigarette smoke, something more artificial, plastic almost. He looked down at his hand suspiciously. The colour was right, the weight familiar, but this was definitely not his coat. He transferred his suspicion to Tyler, who was watching him carefully from behind his wide smile. Was damn hard to smack a man that insisted on smiling at you.

"What's this then?"

"It's a present." The smile faltered ever so slightly. "Aren't you going to try it on?"

Gene tried, he really did. Concealed his pleasure at the gift and fixed on his best scowl, the one that had hardened criminals quailing. Even Tyler, despite, or maybe because of, long acquaintance took a small step back.

"Hmmm?" He stood up, shook the coat at Sam. "Is this supposed to make up for blowing yourself up?"

"No. It was supposed to say thank you."

A little sulky now, the smile entirely wiped off his face but Gene couldn't honestly consider that an improvement. When he shook the coat on it fitted just like his old one and somehow Gene was no longer in the mood for handing out bollockings.

"Don't do it again, Tyler," he said gruffly, and he knew Sam knew he wasn't talking about buying him clothing from the way he ducked his head and didn't answer. Next thing he knew the smaller man was fussing around with his collar, pulling out the piece of cardboard that had kept the heavy coat straight in the shop display. Gene stood stock still until Tyler was done, picked an invisible piece of lint off his lapel in a manner so reminiscent of his wife of a morning that Gene half expected a peck on the cheek and a lecture on hanging his clothes up should he come home late.

"I'm sorry Gene. I didn't-" Tyler cut off with a gasp as Gene punched him right in the solar plexus. He teetered for a second then went down, thoroughly winded.

"I think you mean 'Guv'," said Gene with a sniff. He stepped over the body of his prone DI and opened his office door. "C'mon Tyler. Beer o'clock."


End file.
